New Research Reveals Why More Women File for Divorce

Posted By Cairns Law Offices || 31-Aug-2015

A new study reveals why more women initiate divorce than men, and it's probably not what you think. It doesn't have to do with infidelity, domestic violence, or being disconnected from one's partner because of social media addictions, it has to do with something closer to home.

For most of American history, marriage was not the example of equality. Wives shouldered the childcare and housework, depended on their husbands for financial support and enjoyed little independence while their husbands openly, or not so openly had affairs.

Fast-forward to today's $50-billion wedding industry, and marriage isn't so much about stability, or convenience, it's about finding and keeping "the one."

According to Stanford Sociologist Michael Rosenfeld, Americans today are looking for a spouse who is more than reliable, they're looking for someone to be their best friend, someone who can pay the bills, and someone who is a lot of fun.

Earlier this month, Rosenfeld presented research at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting, which found that higher expectations are leaving women feeling unhappy about their marriages, and more so than men.

In a survey of 2,262 heterosexual adults in partnerships over a five year period conducted by Rosenfeld, the research found that women initiate 69 percent of divorces. Of those women, they reported having less satisfaction with their marriages than the men did, The Washington Post reported.

For decades, scientists and researchers have known that wives are usually the ones who ask for the divorce, but Rosenfeld's study also surveyed people who were in non-married romantic relationships, ranging from casual flings to couples who lived together for years.

In the non-marital relationships, the study found that men were just as likely to initiate a breakup as a women, signifying that marriage is harder on women.

Rosenfeld said that women enter into marriages expecting there to be more benefits than there were in the past, but the truth is a lot trickier than that.

He speculated that though most men today have egalitarian values, they tend to have subconscious expectations about a wife's traditional role at home, which could explain why after all these years, women are still shouldering twice as many household responsibilities as their husbands.

Here in Pennsylvania, whether a wife works in insurance, banking, education, utilities, cable, manufacturing, or another industry, many of today's disgruntled wives have full-time jobs, hence they don't have the same practical need to stay in a marriage that makes them unhappy as their mothers and grandmothers did.

So, while marriage hasn't quite shed its inequitable roots, we're finding that more women can afford to be a lot choosier than they did 30 or 50 years ago.